It’s not difficult to understand what being a Christian is all about. It’s all about loving God and our neighbors. Not hard to understand, but it can be a challenge to live. Today’s excerpt from The Kingdom Turn is found on page 150:
“Love can drive people crazy. But it can also make us sane – not only sane, but filled with joy, nestled in peace, brimming with hope, and given to caring selflessly for others. What kind of love, we might ask, can do so much for our yearning hearts?
“The love God commands of us when He instructs us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves. Of the three great theological virtues – faith, hope, and love – love is certainly the greatest. Love gives rise to faith and hope. It nurtures and sustains them, causing them to grow stronger so that they feed the cardinal virtues – courage, wisdom, temperance, and justice – and bring them to ever-higher states of maturity.
“Grow in love and you will grow in faith and hope; grow in these, and all the virtues will come to fruition as they should. Love is the cornerstone of Christian practice.
“When our greatest passion is not the fleeting fame or fortune of this fickle world, but the unchanging and unfading glory of the living God, then our hearts will be tuned and strengthened as God intends, so that we might truly live in love. Know God, and love Him – this is where practicing the Kingdom begins. Loving God we will surely love our neighbors as well. Loving God follows from desiring Him and leads to all other Kingdom virtues and practices. If we can discipline our hearts to love God purely, supremely, and consistently, all the other aspects of our lives will come together as they should.”
For reflection or discussion
1. What does it look like when you are consciously seeking to love God?
2. How does God’s love for you cause you to want to love Him more?
The apostle John wrote that we love because God first loved us. Knowing God loves us, and that He commands us to love Him and out neighbor, simplifies what it means to be a Christian. Learn to love as God does, and you’ll have no problem living as He intends. Share today’s podcast with a friend, then get together and talk about how to increase your love for God together. You can order a free copy of The Kingdom Turn by going to The Ailbe Bookstore.
T. M. Moore
